Don't blame the OS for bad support from the manufacturer.

Indeed, besides linux is a relatively small part of "open source".

I'm guessing the sound card is a Creative X-FI? Driver support from Creative has been an absolute shambles. They eventually released an alpha driver a year or two ago that only worked on 64bit linux but usually didn't work at all and it has been an uphill slog from there. It is now included in the latest kernel and works with Ubuntu 9.10 out of the box. As for printers, they're usually handled by CUPS, which is the same system OSX uses but it still relies on the manufacturer supplying drivers.

However RTF was developed to be cross platform. And looking at wiki (and reading the citations) it looks like PDF is now open/becoming open.

JJ makes a very good point. The very reason I still have Office is because everybody else uses it. If Open Office was easily accepted by others, I'd switch happily. Currently FF is the only thing I use and that's because it does what I need it to do and for me is better than IE. I've been using it for years now. I don't think Winamp counts any more as it's owned by AOL, but I've used that for 10yrs for the same reasons.

If Linux could game and wasn't so bloody nerdy, I'd probably make a permanent move. It's interesting how just reading about Linux makes me feel like a Mac user. e.g. "Why doesn't it just work / I don't want to fiddle with my computer, I want to just use it".

Fiddling is a good thing. Just ask any Gentoo user - they compile and optimise their own code so that it runs better on their machine. I wish I was knowledgeable enough to use Gentoo. As it stands about the most advanced distro. I can use is SUSE.

I never said it was the OS's fault, but that doesn't change the fact that the package as a whole isn't as well supported so some things don't work. That's why I don't use it any more.

Reason I use office is simple

VBA Macros, used in a lot of the spreadsheets I use for matched betting, it simply won't work in OO, and OO doesn't format files in the intended way sometimes

I have nothing against Open source/freeware. But I will use the best product for the job, I paid less than £40 for my operating system and Office software (actually I didn't pay for my licence of Office as my parents had a spare licence from the Home + student) because I shopped around for the best price. I am happy to pay that instead of having to struggle to find workarounds for the documents I need to use.

I've tried loads of open source software, and to be honest the only thing I use lots is Firefox. I guess I didn't like Linux because there's barely any native game support (OK, maybe TransGaming, but that's not the point), and everything is often terrible knock-offs of "proper" software. For example, aMSN on Ubuntu is truly terrible, where as MSN Messenger is brilliant and a lot of people use it. Don't get me wrong, I like to try alternative software and operating systems, but I think I use OSX and Windows more because there is (even Linux_User has to agree with this ) much more support and software available for these.

The open part of open source makes no difference to me. I don't know or even want to know how to make changes to source for say Ubuntu, but I suppose if it was closed-source, it would cost money. Which would kinda be defeating the object of it all, wouldn't it?

MSN Messenger? Brilliant? The man has no taste!

Actually, my problem is I have Google, Live, Yahoo!, Apple .me, and ICQ, so Messenger is useless... That or I need half a dozen different clients running.

I've tried a lot, but ended up using Trillian Astra, because it stores my profile in the cloud, so I only need to log onto my Astra account from whichever machine I happen to be on (including just a web browser) and all my accounts are automatically signed in. Shame it isn't OSS, but it works better than any OSS or protocol specific client I've tried.

Linux, no gaming support? Er, WINE? As for aMSN - it IS awful. Use emesene.

No native support, he said.

WINE is okay, but it can be complicated to set up and it isn't exactly fast - on my old rig, Anarchy Online would run at 100fps in XP and 18fps under WINE...

Actually any game support, besides ID software's ports are using Wine. Transgaming is Wine with closed-source addon-ons etc

Yes, gaming is a weak point, but with consolification marching onwards, that isn't going to matter so much in future.

MSN is the root of all evil and possibly the crappest bit of software ever.

And I'm sorry, but gaming on Linux isn't gaming on Windows. That's just how it is.

I'm not disagreeing with you - I'd imagine most linux users who play games will dual-boot with Windows just for playing games, but nearly everything else the average user wants to do can be done in linux. Office 2003 and 2007 run fine with Wine, as does photoshop CS2 etc. The native apps won't come until people start using it unfortunately.

Yeah but gaming on PC alone in your bedroom isn't gaming on console in 4-player mode with a roomful of mates, laughter and beer.

I know which I prefer - which is why the lack of Linux gaming doesn't bother me. That's just how it is.